Why Terry McAuliffe barely won

Most public polls leading up to Election Day had Democrat Terry McAuliffe coasting to victory, some by double digits, in the Virginia governor’s race. Instead he squeaked by, beating Republican Ken Cuccinelli by less than 3 percentage points.

Text Size

-

+

reset

McAuliffe victory speech

Cuccinelli concession speech

The much-closer-than-expected outcome blunts the narrative that this was a clean win for Democrats going into 2014 and guarantees an intense blame game among Republicans about what might have put Cuccinelli over the top.

When President Barack Obama crossed the Potomac for McAuliffe on Sunday, he glaringly avoided even mentioning his signature accomplishment — trying instead to link Cuccinelli with the federal government shutdown.

Exit polls show a majority of voters — 53 percent — opposed the law. Among them, 81 percent voted for Cuccinelli and 8 percent voted for Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis. McAuliffe won overwhelmingly among the 46 percent who support the health care overhaul.

Cuccinelli actually won independents by 9 percentage points, 47 percent to 38 percent, according to exit polls conducted for a group of media organizations. They made up about one-third of the electorate.

“Obamacare helped close the gap,” said Richmond-based strategist Chris Jankowski, the president of the Republican State Leadership Committee.

Cuccinelli might have won if he had more money.

Even before Cuccinelli delivered his concession speech, the candidate’s close allies were beginning to blame outside groups for not helping out more.

McAuliffe outraised Cuccinelli by almost $15 million, and he used the cash advantage to pummel him on the airwaves. A lack of resources forced the Republican to go dark in the D.C. media market during the final two weeks.

The Republican National Committee spent about $3 million on Virginia this year, compared to $9 million in the 2009 governor’s race.

The Chamber of Commerce spent $1 million boosting McDonnell in 2009 and none this time.

“If the Republicans would have rallied around the nominee instead of refusing to support Cuccinelli, he would have won,” said a GOP source involved in the race.

A constellation of liberal interest groups, meanwhile, poured money in as McAuliffe’s lead grew in the public polling. They wanted to claim credit for their particular issues, whether the environment or abortion. Mike Bloomberg’s super PAC spent $2 million in the final two weeks on ads boosting gun control, for example.

The Republican Governors Association spent $8.3 million for Cuccinelli, compared to $5.2 million four years ago, to try making up for the fundraising disparity. But much of that money came earlier in the summer, and the RGA eventually stopped pouring cash into what looked like a losing campaign.

Cuccinelli personally was not a great fundraiser. Removing direct contributions from outside groups, McAuliffe raised $28 million to Cuccinelli’s $11.7 million.

RNC spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski defended the committee, saying that it has to make hard choices about how to spend limited resources.

“The RNC spent millions of dollars to fund the ground game efforts in both New Jersey and Virginia, working in coordination with both campaigns to identify and turn out voters,” she said.